"War affects families most of all," Dr. Dobson noted, "and it would be irresponsible for Focus on the Family and other evangelical organizations to ignore that suffering. The Iraq War has been devastating not only to American families, but to Iraqi families as well."

In several moving paragraphs, Dr. Dobson described the toll that the Iraq War has taken on the family. "Too many sons and daughters are coming back dead or maimed. Too many young children are losing mothers or fathers to this senseless carnage."

Dr. Dobson writes how he was shocked to learn that sometimes husbands and wives are deployed in Iraq simultaneously, leaving children in the care of grandparents. "Even for parents who survive the combat," Dr. Dobson notes, "the long-term effects of post-traumatic stress disorder hit the family hardest of all — with higher rates of depression, suicide, and domestic violence."

"The healing must begin," Dr. Dobson concluded. "It is time to put aside party differences and work together in bringing the troops home, closing down the prison at Guantánamo, and returning America to the sound moral principles of its heritage."

Comments:

Huh?

I just read the Op-Ed you're linked to and it has absolutely nothing of what you say it does.

Charles, it's not always obvious when you're being serious and when your satirizing your subject.
I only saw this as being satire when I saw your blog comment classification.

I only wished that this comment from James Dobson were true.

— Joseph Mattson, Fri, 5 Oct 2007 21:44:21 -0400 (EDT)

Where's the blog comment classification?

— Josef Finsel, Sat, 6 Oct 2007 10:57:45 -0400 (EDT)

It's hard to take anything Mr Petzold says as serious on the Iraq war in particular, as opposed to any other war,
as he appears to be a true pacifist, refusing to even countenance violence in self defence. While pacifism can at least be a consistent position,
if you are truly willing to renounce all acts of violence, including organized violence by the police, it makes criticism of any particular war no different from any other war.

I wonder if he read the front page article in Saturday's Times about the murder of 1.5 million Ukranian jews at the hands of the Germans.
Too bad for them that Mr. Petzold thinks WWII happened because the Germans were mistreated after WWI, and thus WWII was not a defensive war,
and no one should have fought back.

— David Docetad, Sat, 6 Oct 2007 19:06:58 -0400 (EDT)

(David, you might want to avoid the term "self defence" in connection with the Iraq War. Some people might start to wonder who the aggressor is, and who's practicing self defence against the foreign invaders! — Charles)

(Charles, you can certainly argue that the Iraq War is misguided, counterproductive, and a war of aggression, and you could possibly even be right.
However, you cannot be taken seriously if you also believe, as you have said, that the Allied effort in WWII was a war of aggression and not self defense,
and that it was morally indefensible to kill the German and Japanese soldiers who attacked the Allies and slaughtered millions of people in cold blood. -David)